Kroger stores have implemented numerous steps to protect customers and associates during the COVID-19 pandemic. Credit: Cori Wade | Assistant Photo Editor
Every 30 minutes, Kroger cashier Audrey Leopold, a second-year in social work and sociology, and her coworkers shut down their registers, wash their hands and wipe the registers down with sanitizer. These are just some of the precautions Kroger stores are taking to protect their employees and the community since the COVID-19 outbreak.
Amid a COVID-19 response that has shut down most nonessential businesses and activities across the state, grocery stores remain open. Grocery store employees are now on the front lines of the pandemic. Lives now depend on the diligence of these low-wage workers.
Kroger stores have implemented numerous steps to protect customers and associates during the COVID-19 pandemic and are following guidance from federal, state and local agencies, according to Kroger’s website.
Audrey Leopold said the Kroger store where she works, located on Tiffin Avenue in Findlay, Ohio, has changed its hours, placed “Please Wait” signs on the floor to promote social distancing and imposed a designated time for people immunocompromised or 60 years or older to shop. The store, along with other Kroger locations in Columbus, Ohio, has also placed plexiglass shields at registers to protect cashiers.
The chain has also begun to limit the number of customers in the store to 50-percent capacity to allow for the proper distancing of customers throughout the store, according to a Kroger press release.
“I do have a little thing of hand sanitizer, like personal hand sanitizer, that I keep in my apron. I use it after every transaction,” Audrey Leopold said.
While working part-time at Kroger, Audrey Leopold said she has partnered with a friend to sew protective masks to donate to health care workers and wear herself at work. Her store supplies gloves, but does not supply employees with masks.
Nathan Mundo, a third-year in chemical engineering, works mostly night shifts at the Short North Kroger, unloading trucks and keeping the shelves stocked with goods for customers.
The Short North Kroger supplies its employees with gloves to use while stocking shelves and makes sanitizing supplies available.
“I would like to bring a mask, but I haven’t been able to get one,” Mundo said. “I’m not super worried about it, but I don’t want to contaminate a bunch of other people.”
Kroger encourages its employees to wear protective masks and gloves while at work. The retailer has ordered masks for employees to wear at work as of April 6, and they should start arriving at stores soon, according to a Kroger press release.
Like Audrey Leopold’s Findlay store, the Short North location has implemented lines on the floor to help customers practice social distancing.
Josh Leopold, a first-year in music composition and Audrey’s sister, works in the ClickList online grocery ordering services at the Findlay Kroger, where she takes groceries out to vehicles or walks around the store grabbing items for curbside pickup.
To protect ClickList employees from possible COVID-19 exposure, Kroger requires customers to notify workers if they or anyone in their households have COVID-19 symptoms so employees know to take special precautions with their vehicle at pickup, Josh Leopold said.
“Just making sure we’re using a lot of hand sanitizer with picking groceries,” Josh Leopold said. “We all have a little ring with one of the smaller hand sanitizers on there and we have plenty in the back.”
Josh said she has now started washing her phone more frequently — about once or twice per week — and makes sure to sanitize things that she touches on a daily basis to stay healthy.
“It definitely worries me, although there are some things I’m more worried about because I know both my own parents are first responders,“ Josh Leopold said. “All four of us are kind of going out almost on a day-to-day basis being well exposed to the general public.”
Contact with countless customers paired with a lack of sick leave put grocery store employees at an even greater risk. Audrey Leopold said part-time Kroger employees do not get sick leave, and full-time employees cannot use saved-up sick leave days unless they test positive for COVID-19.
Kroger has offered its employees extra compensation to support them during the pandemic.
Mundo said Kroger offered all of its employees a weekly $25 stipend for food from the store, and the money is loaded onto the employee’s employee card.
Kroger also began giving full-time employees a $300 bonus and part-time employees a $150 bonus, Josh Leopold said.
Recently, the chain raised the wages of its employees an extra $2 per hour from March 29 to April 18, Audrey Leopold said.
Kroger employees at the Short North location start out at $10 per hour and are able to get raises throughout their time at the store, Mundo said.
Keeping the doors open means people are able to get the supplies they need to keep daily life going, but essential workers deal with the stress of being on the front lines.
“I don’t feel like a superhero, but I mean it definitely makes me feel like the job is more appreciated,” Mundo said.
